Editor’s Note: While the logic of it being Trump and not Broidy holds up, new evidence has come to light that I’m not able to disclose that makes at least more likely that it was Broidy after all. But as I keep saying, the SDNY may have the proof one way or another.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Unless something happens, I’m getting about ready to stop talking about this and move on to the more pressing issues of working on a novel and looking for a new job. The reason is, even though Peter K. Stris, Shera Bechard’s attorney, keeps looking at my Periscopes, in real terms, the evidence that it was Trump and not Elliot Broidy who had the affair with Bechard is so muddled and nebulous that it kinda feels like I’m wasting my time talking about it.

As I keep saying, I think if it ever comes out, it’ll come out because of the Southern District of New York’s investigations and nothing else. I think it’s all kind of a moot point for the time being. It’s fun to speculate and talk about, but I would need something a lot closer to a smoking gun like a picture, or a Little Blue Dress before I got too excited.

I think all of this is more about me struggling to get some closure, at least for the time being, more than anything else. Unless something big happens, I have more pressing issues in front of me than worrying about a theory I can’t prove. What’s worse, even if it’s proven it doesn’t mean anything will happen. The Religious Right, the people who would bring Trump down if they got fed up with him, don’t seem like they’re going to do that even if Trump pressured someone into having an abortion. Not that I have any evidence that he did, but I do have suspicions.

I have no credibility and no one listens to me, so, really, what’s the point. I really admire my friend’s ability to dig up clues on social media when it comes to Shera Bechard, but he continues to find stuff that could either prove or disprove the theory we’re thinking about. It’s really fun-interesting watching him work, but I have got to start working on my novel and looking for a job. I really hope he finally proves his theory to be correct, but it may take a while even if someone else gets involved.

What gets me is that the Wall Street Journal broke the story a few months ago without any evidence that Elliot Broidy even knows Shera Bechard. That’s weird. It wasn’t under later in the day after they released the story that they added the name to the story. But they didn’t release any evidence that it was Bechard that Broidy had the affair with. If one wanted to be really paranoid, you could say that was the plan all along — get the story out there then a little later release the name to deflect attention from the fact that there was no proof to back up the connection.

Let’s get a little Ready Player One on this statement released after the Wall Street Journal article. Why did he mention that she was a Playboy Playmate? One could speculate he was stroking the ego of Trump. That this statement was more for Trump’s consumption than anyone else’s.

Ok, why does Keith Davidson pop up AGAIN. There are at least two other women connected to TRUMP — Stormy Daniels being one of them — who’s lawyer was at one point Keith Davidson. This connection is just really, really weird. Strange. Spooky.

That Cohen–Davidson connection is really off-the-chart odd. Why is no one else a little rattled by this connection? Isn’t it odd? I wish someone with a little bit more resources than me and my friend might do so digging on this matter. But because of the sorry state of political reporting — not to mention how lazy bloggers have become — I think for the time being there’s not much to see here. The whole thing is tantalizing, yes, but like I said, it’s all so nebulous that while logic says it’s Trump, we lack so much hard information that it could be Broidy as well. When Bechard locked down and scrubbed her social media, she may been eliminating evidence of any connection not to Trump, but of Broidy.

While New York Magazine did a great job laying out the theory that it was Donald Trump and not Elliot Broidy who had an affair with Shera Bechard, because of the research of a friend of mine, I have lingering questions about what may or may not have allegedly happened between Trump and Ms. Bechard.

Take, for instance, the basic question of what her state of mind was when she had the abortion. Did she in any way fell pressured or coerced into it in exchange for $1.6 million? Was there a direct quid pro quo for the abortion? In other words, was the only way she could get $1.6 million was having an abortion? We know Trump likes to raw dog his lovers because of Stormy Daniels, so it would make sense that that adds to the likelihood that it was Trump, not Broidy who got her pregnant.

There are other questions. Why is there no evidence that Broidy and Ms. Bechard even know each other? Wouldn’t make sense for that to have leaked out with her name when the Wall Street Journal reported on the affair? One enormous issue with the affair if it was Trump is how they kept it a secret while Trump was running for president and even into his administration.

We have extremely circumstantial evidence that puts Ms. Bechard in at least the same city as Trump and in some cases even property that he owns. One thing this raises for me is, is Trump even smart enough to pull something like this off? The level of secrecy required to do all of this not only in the middle of a presidential campaign but as a modern president is staggering. One thing is clear — she was definitely Trump’s type and as I’ve said before, logically, it makes a lot of sense that she and Trump had affair, not Broidy.

But factually, we are left grasping at straws. We have tantalizing evidence here and there from her social media activity, but that’s about it. Nothing that would be like a the little blue dress of the Clinton Administration. So, given how lazy I fear most MSM reporters are and how beholden they are to access journalism, I fear that we may never know the answers to these questions, and if we do they will either be met with a shrug by the very people who would otherwise be the most upset, or the whole thing will be so muddled because of negative-polarization that it will be very moot indeed.

And, yet, I’d like to think maybe someone, somewhere with some gumption and access to the resources needed to follow up on my questions as well as the New York Magazine article in general, might save the day. Only time will tell, I guess.

Here’s what we know for the time being about all of this:

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

New York Magazine recently came out with an article that proposed the theory that it was not Republican mega contributor Elliot Broidy who had an affair with Playboy Bunny Shera Bechard, but rather President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

This is significant because if it was, indeed Trump, the affair would have occurred at some point between 2015 and 2017 when Trump was running for president and actually in office as well. A friend of mine who is really good into snooping into social media has found extremely tentative, extremely circumstantial evidence that if does not prove the affair at least provides some evidence that it was at least possible.

Now, the above doesn’t prove anything at all. But it is interesting that she was having fun at a Trump property pool in NYC, while her alleged lover Broidy is a long-time resident of LA.

The only reason why any of this matters is the internal logic of her affair with Broidy is nowhere near as strong as that of her having an affair with Trump. Broidy has all the makings of a proxy fall guy for a significantly more powerful and wealthy individual who didn’t want a messy end of an affair to harm his political career. Add to this that Broidy would use Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen and things are very curious indeed. Here is a bit more circumstantial evidence. Again let me stress that this could mean anything, but it is weird.

Next up we have some evidence that if nothing else Trump and Bechard were within proximity of each other at some point about the time of when they were supposed to be having an affair. This could mean nothing, it could mean everything.

Now we enter even murkier waters. That of her state of mind at the time she was to have an abortion. This is where things are the most barely holding on to what might be real, and yet if you hold that it was Trump not Broidy then this is definitely interesting if nothing else.

Then the following happens. Things change. She becomes interested in the MeToo movement. What does this mean? Anything? Nothing? Don’t know.

Finally, we have this situation. This is interesting, but we’re really grasping at straws unless something happens that gives us a lot more information.

Trump has long been compared to former Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi was impossible to bring down until he wasn’t. He would have been in power forever until he was connected to an underage prostitution ring. The thing about Trump is, as it stands, Trump is a king. As Benjamin Wittes has quipped, Trump is “malevolence only mitigated by incompetence.”

There has been a lot of talk about what could possibly bring down Trump. People keep telling The Resistance to talk about policy instead of Trump’s many scandals. But there comes a point when the scandals get so grievous — like in the instance of Berlusconi — when they finally break the back of his support.

So, right now, the only thing I can think of that come anywhere close to bringing down Trump would be proving he, not Elliot Broidy, had an affair with former Playboy Playmate Shera Bechard. The thing that really bugs me about the New York Magazine piece about the theory that this is the case, is it didn’t really either get into the details of how this might have been the case nor tell us what the political implications would be.

But if we could prove it was Trump and not Broidy then we would have a scandal so devastating that I’d like to think it would give the most oblivious, hardened deplorable pause for thought. Because once you prove Trump had the affair, then what we know of what happened to Bechard becomes significant indeed.

Apparently she had the affair sometime between late 2015 and late 2017. It ended with her having an abortion and getting a $1.6 million payoff from Broidy through Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. So, Trump would be implicated in not only an affair and a payoff like with Stormy Daniels, but an abortion as well. And there is at lest extremely circumstantial evidence that whatever happened with the affair left Bechard with an interest in the #MeToo movement. So, it’s at last possible that she felt pressured or coerced into having the abortion in exchange for the $1.6 million.

Now, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever know one way or another. But it is telling that the SDNY did raid Cohen’s office and as such might have acquired proof one way or another of what really happened between Trump, Bechard and Broidy.

The really interesting thing is that logic tells us it was Trump, we just don’t know enough of the logistics to figure out how Trump could have possibly have pulled off an affair with Bechard while he was in office. The level of secrecy required to pull of the affair is difficult to comprehend.

But I don’t know. I want to believe that the deporables might care if if Trump pressured a woman into having an abortion, but they’ve invested so much into the long con that is Trump that there’s a good chance that even that wouldn’t phase them. And given that Trump has no shame, will never resign and has immunity by way of a Republican majority in Congress, it seems Trump may have achieved a level of power that even Berlusconi would be envious.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.